Living a Legacy of Love

Living a Legacy
One fine day, ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, when we look back at our lives and reflect on the life that we have led – what would it be? What is the legacy that we are leaving behind? And if we were to sum it up in one sentence – ten sentences – what would these be?

Do we realize the purpose of our life and our ultimate goal? Are we objective in our actions or do we react to every stimulus around us? Do we react to the people and circumstances around us? And if so, what is becoming the sum total of our life? Where are all our actions taking us?

When we are in the final days of our life, what will we want? When death extends its hands to us, where will we turn for comfort? Will we hug that college degree hanging on the wall? Will we ask to be carried to the garage so we can sit in our cars? Will we find comfort in rereading our financial statements? It seems that our lives today have become one big reaction. We need to sit down and introspect on our purpose and priorities.

When we see ourselves, do we see the purpose we are made for? In a world of confused identity, let us be firm in our role. As we emerge from this lesson of life, we should emerge with a defined purpose – to practise spirituality. There is no question as to why the Lord created us. We know our purpose. If we live in obedience to His will, then we can enter into our final years with the assurance of knowing that life was well spent and that our home is but a wink away. And is there any greater reward than this?

A Legacy of Love
To live a legacy of love, we need to understand what it is to love – we have forgotten what it means to love. Love is a power within us. The more we give, the more we get. As is aptly written in the book Legacy of Love: “It is his legacy of love, his most precious gift to us that holds us on the path he placed us on. He always said, ‘Love is within you, and is not to be found anywhere outside.’”

Let us take an inventory of our hearts. Are we living in the overflow of the Master’s love? How well do we love the people in our lives? Does the way we treat people reflect the way he has treated us? But loving people is not always easy. It is not easy to love those who have been the source of heartache, rejection or loneliness. Conventional wisdom states that a lack of love implies a lack of effort. So, we try harder, dig deeper and strain more. And with that, there is one essential step that we cannot afford to miss – turning to him whom we know is love, whom we experience as love. We receive his love so that we can give love ourselves.

Will we ever love perfectly? No, this only the Master will. But we will love better than we ever have. When kindness comes grudgingly, we will remember his kindness to us and ask him to make us more kind. When patience is scarce, we will thank him for his and ask him to make us more patient. When it is hard to forgive, we will not list all the times we have been given grief. Rather, we will list all the times we have been given grace and pray to become more forgiving. We will receive first so we can give. We will drink deeply from his endless love.

And when we do, we will discover a love worth giving – a legacy worth living. If we could choose the path we wanted, and we could fill it with one word, the answer would be love. Let our every action be so full of love – that love becomes the be-all and end-all of our lives.